Most times, I forget I’m rubbing
until Etta reminds me.
TICKET ON THE TITANIC
Etta & I had no intention of missing
the maiden voyage of the finest ship
built by man, but Captain Smith drew
the color line almost as quickly as Tommy
Burns did. I expect the line from
a frightened prize fighter, but an English
sea captain? He should be more principled.
Especially after I offered $4,000 for each
ticket. Of course, that color line kept me
from fighting for Etta’s space on a lifeboat
when the iceberg hit. That is a fight
you can bet your last copper I would
have won. Even after all the offense
I suffered & the indignity of being refused
passage, I would never dance the Eagle
Rock after all those people drowned.
IL TROVATORE
The first time I heard the aria,
it was like sun up after the Great Storm.
The woman’s voice rising, then rising
more as if the want of it all wouldn’t
allow her another breath. Like roadwork
when you’ve punched yourself out.
Like Tommy Burns catching my gut hook.
Like the first I saw of Etta.
Like the sound of the crowd in Reno
when Jeffries couldn’t go on. Like going
up the steps of the Café de Champion
after the crash of a gunshot in Etta’s
room. Like finding Etta on the floor,
a halo of blood getting bigger
by the minute. Like the nurses not nursing
but crying & pointing at the gun,
still hot in Etta’s own hand. Like realizing
Etta’s still breathing, whispering
a libretto on the heels of her last breath:
You did this, Papa. You did this.
NO DECISION
HUBERT’S MUSEUM & FLEA CIRCUS (1937)
Below constellations of pool balls scattering geometry’s
grace. Below pinball machines ringing like telephones
full of congratulations & the streetcar stutter of a movie
viewer: Jack Dempsey clubbing Luis Firpo or being
clubbed by Gene Tunney, depending on the reel & the day.
Below the heavy bag that, with each amateur punch, pulls
down the ceiling like confetti at the end of a parade.
Behind the man with the sagging eye who makes change
for the 25¢ admission by touch, & past the turnstile
that sticks sometimes, so he pushes himself up, dusts
sunflower shells from blue trousers, & exits his smudged
booth to make it work. After Congo the Wild Man’s
caterwaul & Sealo the Seal-Finned Boy’s handclaps,
as slick as fresh meat on the butcher’s table, Jack Johnson
comes out. Dog-eared blue suit & blue beret. Red wine
sipped through a straw: What would you like to know?
NOTES
1.The collection’s epigraph is transcribed from the version of “The Titanic” included in Leadbelly’s Last Sessions (Smithsonian Folkways, 1994). In the recording, there is a bridge between the two verses.
2.“A Great Maltese Cat Toying with a White Mouse”: The title comes from a description of the 1908 championship fight in the San Francisco Call (December 26, 1908).
3.“Texas Authorities Will Prosecute the Champion if He Takes White Wife”: The title is a byline excerpt from the Chicago Tribune (March 12, 1909). The full byline is “Beware Mr. Jack Johnson: Texas Authorities Will Prosecute the Champion if He Takes White Wife to That State.”
4.“Race Relations I”: Del sole un raggio brilla più vivido nel tuo bicchiere (“A ray of sun shines brighter in your glass”) is from Giuseppe Verdi’s Il Trovatore, Act II, Scene I.
5.“Vedi! Le fosche notturne”: All of the quotes are from the chorus of Verdi’s Il Trovatore, Act II, Scene I. All’opra, all’opra! (“To work, to work!”); Dagli, martella! (“Go to it, hammer away!”); Chi del gitano i giorni abbella? / La zingarella! (“Who is it cheers the gypsy’s days? / The gypsy girl!”).
6.“A Struggle Between a Demon and a Gritty Little Dwarf”: The title comes from a ringside description of the fight between Jack Johnson and Stanley Ketchel.
7.“Machine Containing Johnson’s Friends Wrecked”: The poem’s title is a byline from the New York Times (July 17, 1909).
8.“Alias”: “Texas Watermelon Picaninny” comes from the title of a fabricated biography of Johnson that ran in the Los Angeles Times (October 4, 1903). The full title is “Texas Watermelon Picaninny Makes Big Dents.” The rest of the names were given to Johnson by sportswriters over the course of his career.
9.“Gold Smile”: The epigraph is from William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 3: Act 5, Scene 6.
10.“Fidelity”: Di geloso amor sprezzato (“Fires of jealousy, despised affection”) is from Act I, Scene II of Verdi’s Il Trovatore.
11.“Out of the Bath”: “Stride la vampa” is the aria from Act II, Scene I of Verdi’s Il Trovatore. Donna s’avanza (“A woman advances”); Lieta in sembianza (“With a happy face”); La tetra fiamma che s’alza, che s’alza al ciel (“A gloomy flame rises, it rises to the sky”).
12.“Carefree as a Plantation Darky in Watermelon Time”: This description of Johnson training to fight Jim Jeffries is from the Baltimore American (July 2, 1910).
Although numerous public records about Jack Johnson were produced during his lifetime, many of those documents—especially the newspaper accounts—contain racist illustrations and demeaning language. As a result, modern biographies on Johnson, such as Finis Farr’s Black Champion: The Life and Times of Jack Johnson, Randy Roberts’s Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and the Era of White Hopes, and Geoffrey C. Ward’s Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, were crucial to the development of this project. The illuminating photographs and video clips featured in Ken Burns’s documentary adaptation of Ward’s book made that work an important resource as well.
Jack Johnson was a natural fabulist and never let the truth get in the way of a good story, so I used his autobiographies In the Ring and Out, Jack Johnson Is a Dandy, and My Life and Battles as organizational resources for the collection’s narrative. I utilized his anecdotal approach to story in the autobiographies as a model for his storytelling style in the poems.
“The Battle of the Century” and the other poems addressing the Johnson-Jeffries contest are the composite of several newspaper accounts and three critical texts: Thomas Hietala’s The Fight of the Century: Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, and the Struggle for Racial Equality, Robert Greenwood’s The Prize Fight of the Century, and Wayne A. Rozen’s superb America on the Ropes: A Pictorial History of the Johnson-Jeffries Fight. In addition, the one remaining recording from Johnson’s narration of the Johnson-Jeffries fight film, “My Own Story of the Big Fight at Reno, Nevada, July 4, 1910 (Part 1),” was indispensable. That recording appears on Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1891–1922 (Archeophone Records, 2005).
One final source worth mentioning is the Department of Justice File 164211. The file catalogues the government’s case in Johnson’s 1913 Mann Act conviction and the subsequent surveillance of Johnson once he fled the United States. Though the incidents related to the trial do not directly appear in this book, the Belle Schreiber interview poems are a response to documents included in the file.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to the editors and staffs of the journals and anthologies in which these poems have appeared, sometimes with different titles and in diff
erent versions:
American Poetry Review: “Battle Royal,” “Fidelity,” “Il Trovatore,” “Sporting Life”
Black Renaissance Noire: “Shadow Boxing III,” “Shadow Boxing IV,” “The Shadow Knows I,” “The Shadow Knows II”
Crab Orchard Review: “Fisticuffs,” “Rememory”
jubilat: “The Battle of the Century”
Natural Bridge: “Fisticuff Difficulty,” “‘Machine Containing Johnson’s Friends Wrecked’”
Papers on Language and Literature: “‘A Great Maltese Cat Toying with a White Mouse’”
Pluck!: “Cannibalism,” “Courtship”
Prairie Schooner: “Alias,” “Gold Smile,” “Prize Fighter,” “Ticket on the Titanic”
Reverie: “Roadwork at Seal Rock”
Southern Indiana Review: “‘A Struggle Between a Demon and a Gritty Little Dwarf,’” “Chicken & Other Stereotypes,” “Marriage Proposal,” “Race Relations I,” “Race Relations II”
Sou’wester: “Cooking Lessons,” “Equality”
St. Louis Beacon: “Battle Royal”
“Cannibalism,” “‘Carefree as a Plantation Darky in Watermelon Time,’” and “Courtship” appear in the anthology America! What’s My Name? (Wind Publications, 2007).
“Blues His Sweetie Gives to Me” appears in the anthology City of the Big Shoulders: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry (University of Iowa Press, 2011).
“Battle Royal,” “‘Carefree as a Plantation Darky in Watermelon Time,’” “Fisticuffs,” “Rememory,” and “Sporting Life” appear in audio and text form on the Illinois Poet Laureate Web site (www .2illinois.gov/poetlaureate/).
“Battle Royal,” “Hubert’s Museum & Flea Circus (1937),” “Rememory,” “Sporting Life,” and “Il Trovatore” appear in audio and text form on the Pen American Center Web site (www.pen.org).
My gratitude to the friends and family who helped make this collection happen with their support and insight: Sherwin Bitsui, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, P. Scott Cunningham, Allison Funk, Ross Gay, Terrance Hayes, Major Jackson, Richard Johnson, Rodney Jones, A. Van Jordan, Melanie Jordan, Allison Joseph, Ruth Ellen Kocher, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Shara McCallum, Kevin Neireiter, Marilyn Nelson, Richard Newman, Michael Nye, Oliver de la Paz, Howard Rambsy, Cedric Ross, Steven D. Schroeder, Sean Singer, Jon Tribble, Frank X. Walker, and Kevin Young.
Thank you to the Lannan Foundation and to the Graduate School and URCA program at Southern Illinois University– Edwardsville for their generous support of time and funding. Thanks to my URCA research assistant, KeyLyn Song, for her archival work.
Many thanks to my editor, Paul Slovak, for helping me develop the book.
Special thanks to Marley and Stacey for their constant support and editorial suggestions.
And to Jake Adam York (August 10, 1972–December 16, 2012), thank you for your grace in poetry and all things. I miss you, my man.
Lastly, thank you to John Arthur Johnson (March 31, 1878–June 10, 1946), the original Heavyweight Champion of the World.
Credit: Taylor Cincotta
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ADRIAN MATEJKA is the author of The Devil’s Garden (Alice James Books, 2003) and Mixology (Penguin, 2009). He is the recipient of two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, a National Poetry Series Award, the New York/New England Award, and a fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. He teaches at Indiana University and lives in Bloomington with his wife, Stacey Lynn Brown, and their daughter.
PENGUIN POETS
JOHN ASHBERY
Selected Poems
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
TED BERRIGAN
The Sonnets
LAUREN BERRY
The Lifting Dress
JOE BONOMO
Installations
PHILIP BOOTH
Selves
JULIANNE BUCHSBAUM
The Apothecary’s Heir
JIM CARROLL
Fear of Dreaming: The Selected Poems
Living at the Movies
Void of Course
ALISON HAWTHORNE DEMING
Genius Loci
Rope
CARL DENNIS
Callings
New and Selected Poems 1974–2004
Practical Gods
Ranking the Wishes
Unknown Friends
DIANE DI PRIMA
Loba
STUART DISCHELL
Backwards Days
Dig Safe
STEPHEN DOBYNS
Velocities: New and Selected Poems, 1966–1992
EDWARD DORN
Way More West: New and Selected Poems
ROGER FANNING
The Middle Ages
ADAM FOULDS
The Broken Word
CARRIE FOUNTAIN
Burn Lake
AMY GERSTLER
Crown of Weeds: Poems
Dearest Creature
Ghost Girl
Medicine
Nerve Storm
EUGENE GLORIA
Drivers at the Short-Time Motel
Hoodlum Birds
My Favorite Warlord
DEBORA GREGER
By Herself
Desert Fathers, Uranium Daughters
God
Men, Women, and Ghosts
Western Art
TERRANCE HAYES
Hip Logic
Lighthead
Wind in a Box
NATHAN HOKS
The Narrow Circle
ROBERT HUNTER
Sentinel and Other Poems
MARY KARR
Viper Rum
WILLIAM KECKLER
Sanskrit of the Body
JACK KEROUAC
Book of Sketches
Book of Blues
Book of Haikus
JOANNA KLINK
Circadian
Raptus
JOANNE KYGER
As Ever: Selected Poems
ANN LAUTERBACH
Hum
If in Time: Selected Poems, 1975–2000
On a Stair
Or to Begin Again
CORINNE LEE
PYX
PHILLIS LEVIN
May Day
Mercury
WILLIAM LOGAN
Macbeth in Venice
Madame X
Strange Flesh
The Whispering Gallery
ADRIAN MATEJKA
The Big Smoke
Mixology
MICHAEL MCCLURE
Huge Dreams: San Francisco and Beat Poems
DAVID MELTZER
David’s Copy: The Selected Poems of David Meltzer
ROBERT MORGAN
Terroir
CAROL MUSKE-DUKES
An Octave above Thunder
Red Trousseau
Twin Cities
ALICE NOTLEY
Culture of One
The Descent of Alette
Disobedience
In the Pines
Mysteries of Small Houses
LAWRENCE RAAB
The History of Forgetting
Visible Signs: New and Selected Poems
BARBARA RAS
The Last Skin
One Hidden Stuff
MICHAEL ROBBINS
Alien vs. Predator
PATTIANN ROGERS
Generations
Wayfare
WILLIAM STOBB
Absentia
Nervous Systems
TRYFON TOLIDES
An Almost Pure Empty Walking
ANNE WALDMAN
G
ossamurmur
Kill or Cure
Manatee/Humanity
Structure of the World Compared to a Bubble
JAMES WELCH
Riding the Earthboy 40
PHILIP WHALEN
Overtime: Selected Poems
ROBERT WRIGLEY
Anatomy of Melancholy and Other Poems
Beautiful Country
Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems
Lives of the Animals
Reign of Snakes
MARK YAKICH
The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine
Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross
JOHN YAU
Borrowed Love Poems
Paradiso Diaspora
The Big Smoke Page 5